Audiotactile interaction in continuity perception.

Norimichi Kitagawa, NTT Communication Science Laboratories

Abstract
Auditory continuity illusion is an impressive phenomenon in which we can hear completely masked potion of a sound by perceptually restoring the masked content based on temporally adjacent context. We found a comparable phenomenon can occur in vibrotactile sensation. When brief temporal gaps inserted in a vibrotactile sinusoidal tone are filled with vibrotactile noise, the tone vibration is perceived to continue behind the noise. This tactile continuity illusion occurred when observers could not distinguish the discontinuous vibration from the actually continuous vibration. We also examined whether the tactile continuity illusion is influenced by hearing a tone which has the same frequency as that of the vibrotactile tone. A pair of continuous and discontinuous vibrotactile targets was presented accompanied by noise vibration. Participants had to indicate which target was discontinuous. We measured the lowest target amplitude at which a discontinuous target could be distinguished from a continuous target. The auditory continuous tones were presented simultaneously with the vibrotactile targets. We found that the continuity discrimination thresholds were higher when the auditory tones were presented than when they were not presented. These results suggest existence of perceptual integration of vibratory information between hearing and touch.

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